Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life

By Jonathan Van Ness

The Emmy-nominated host of Netflix’s Queer Eye follows up his New York Times-bestselling memoir, Over The Top, with this collection of thought-provoking essays on grief and healing, cannabis reform, LGBTQIA+ rights, imposter syndrome, personal style, the HIV safety net, and of, course, how to make your hairdresser love you.

In his New York Times-bestselling memoir Over the Top, Jonathan van Ness showed readers how the incredibly difficult moments from his life (surviving sexual abuse and addiction, being diagnosed with HIV) have existed alongside great joy and positivity (landing a breakout role on Netflix’s Queer Eye, becoming an amateur figure skater and professional standup comedian, doting on his five cats).

If Jonathan learned anything from the painful life experiences, it’s that in order to thrive, he needed to push past the shame and fear of being his true self, which meant getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. In this candid and curious essay collection, he takes a thoughtful, in-depth look at today’s hot-button issues, viewed through the lens of his personal experience. From the evolution of his signature style to an investigative report on the queer history of his hometown, Jonathan reflects on his life and how he has learned to embrace change—doing the work to challenge internalized beliefs, finding compassion and confidence, and learning more about what makes us all so messy and gorgeous.

Balancing the dark and the light, the serious and the madcap, these essays allow us to examine our individual assumptions, expand our horizons, and give ourselves permission to be the flawed and fabulous humans we are.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9780063082281

Jonathan Van Ness

Jonathan Van Ness is a bestselling author, podcaster, comedian, and television personality. He is known for his work as the beauty expert on the Netflix series Queer Eye, for hosting the Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness podcast, and for the web series parody Gay of Thrones.

Book preview

Now, Where Were We?

My thirty-first trip around the sun brought on opportunities I had always dreamed of. I wrote a New York Times bestselling memoir, I sold out Radio City Music Hall on my first headlining stand-up comedy tour, and I was nominated for my second Emmy. I even got to realize my lifelong dream of learning to figure skate.

It all seemed surreal, especially because in the years leading up to that thirty-first trip around the sun, I’d taken a very early detour onto Trauma Boulevard, and later made a few pit stops on Sexual Compulsivity Lane and Hardcore Drug Use Road, before finally exiting on the healing journey off-ramp I’m still on to this day. Sometimes my route feels more chaotic than Michelle Kwan’s win at the 2000 World Figure Skating Championships, where she came back from third place to clinch her third World title. All to say, not everything works out the way we think it will, but that doesn’t mean that our experience is anything less than valid.

Only in hindsight can I see that I achieved my dreams because of, not in spite of, all the bumps in the road. I had to go through everything I did to get to where I am. I’m still learning and growing, but honestly, there’s nothing about my life I would change.

I find that my mind wants to categorize events past and present and put them into tidy little mental boxes. I think it’s my brain trying to have a functional understanding so I can process that topic or experience, check it off on my list, and say, I get it. But I’m constantly trying to deepen my understanding of the world and acknowledge that good and bad can coexist and that we will never be able to just snap our fingers and put everything in its place. While a part of me has always been focused on getting somewhere better, I am always simultaneously looking for ways to try to engage and stay curious and connected about where I am in the process. To quote Kacey Musgraves, I have been happy and sad at the same time, and life just be like that sometimes.

This felt especially true while writing my first book.

In that process, I learned that writing a memoir is like figure skating: it looks effortless and beautiful from the outside, while in reality, you stretch thy groin so much that you nearly split yourself in half for the whole world to see. But in the iconic words of Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2, If you wake up in the mornin’ and you can’t think of anything but singin’ first, then you’re supposed to be a singer, girl. I can’t sing, but every morning I woke up feeling inspired to express myself on the page and on the ice. Luckily, I was able to learn to do both and I became a bestselling author. As for an Olympic figure skater, I’m still an Olympic-level figure skating . . . fan.

I knew I was in for a rough journey when I first decided to tell my story in Over the Top. Aside from figuring out the mental discipline required to actually sit myself down every single day and do the writing (a process that consisted of consuming countless cups of coffee, cannabis, and cinnamon streusel cakes from Trader Joe’s before I could really hit my groove), I knew that in order to tell my truth accurately I’d need to relive the most intense and hurtful moments I’ve ever experienced. If you haven’t written a memoir yourself, just imagine going to therapy to discuss your deepest trauma every single morning for a year, only there’s no actual therapist there to help you process what you’re sharing about yourself. (I do have an amazing therapist, thank God, but with my sessions only happening once or twice a week, it felt like swallowing a couple of Advil after being run over daily by a Mack truck.)

Coming out very publicly about my HIV+ status, surviving sexual abuse, and overcoming hardcore drug use was a healing yet harrowing experience. Luckily, I also had many joyful memories to write about. I hoped sharing my story would help other people going through similar hardships, and that helped balance out the nerve-racking and painful parts. Still, by the time the final draft was completed and on its way to the printer, all I could think was: That was like wearing the skinniest stiletto heels ever, but I just got home and now I can take them off—the hard part is over.

Don’t get me wrong. The book was something I hadn’t even dared dream was possible, and I’m still overwhelmed with gratitude that my publisher and editor believed in me and felt that I had a story worth telling. However, after over a year of diligently laboring in love, writing my story the way I wanted it to be told, hoping it would inspire people or help them in their healing journey, I was ready to move forward. Once the book came out, I learned quickly that it’s hard to move forward when you’re constantly being dragged back into the past: promoting it meant reliving the darker moments of my life all over again. And again. And again.

Each time I did another interview, I was pulled right back into everything I’d gone through, always in front of a different stranger, and every one of them with their own agenda and a series of probing questions about times in my life that I thought I’d made peace with. As more and more of these interviews piled up, I began to wonder if I actually had.

I also didn’t anticipate how readers still coming to terms with their HIV status would suddenly see me as a source of strength. This was humbling but also added whole new layers of pressure and doubt. Could I really be that person for them? Answering questions from people I’d never met, helping them find doctors, and not quite knowing how the HIV safety net worked in whatever state, or sometimes country, they were in often made me feel useless about the best way to guide them.

And that wasn’t all. Survivors who were still processing their own sexual abuse now viewed me as a confidant with whom they could share their stories. It gave me a whole new level of empathy, and I can’t overstate how honored I am whenever someone feels safe enough with me to discuss their pain. But sometimes having an incredibly intense and intimate conversation and taking on that energy made it hard to turn on a dime when I had to interact with someone from the press immediately afterwards and suddenly become my giggly, happy JVN self.

I’m not trying to complain or be an ungrateful nightmare. I just thought writing the book would be the most challenging part, but that was shortsighted of me, because for folks who read my story and found that it resonated with them, obviously the book coming out would only be the beginning. And for those who read or heard about my book who don’t relate to me, well, hey, call me an optimist, but I definitely didn’t expect all the rage-inducing transphobic, homophobic, HIV-stigmatizing ignorance that has been hurled my way. And one of the hardest parts was at the very beginning.

Over the Top came out on September 24, 2019, and in the weeks leading up to my publication date I was a nervous wreck. That’s pretty normal for any debut author, and luckily I had a ton of work on my plate to distract me. I was in the middle of my first international comedy tour (much more about that later) and had the Creative Arts Emmys to look forward to. Queer Eye had been nominated for six of them, and the cast and crew were excitedly preparing for the ceremony. I even had a nomination of my own for Gay of Thrones, for Outstanding Short Form Variety Series.

About a month before the book’s release, I landed my first big sit-down interview about it with a reporter from an important newspaper. He’d scheduled a breakfast date at a little corner café just a few blocks from my apartment in New York City, and walking there that morning I felt just like Carrie Bradshaw in the opening credits of Sex and the City, except with heartburn and a deep fear that I was about to diarrhea my tutu all over the sidewalk.

This would be the first time I’d spoken about the book to anyone outside my immediate circle of friends and family, and I was dying to know what the journalist thought of the project I’d poured so much of myself into.

I arrived at the café, introduced myself to the writer, and soon after we were seated, he asked, True or false: your book covers disordered eating.

I felt stunned. Sure, I’d written some epic descriptions of the multitudes of sugary snacks I basically lived on for the first, well, all of the years of my life, but that was his takeaway? That I had an eating disorder? Doesn’t everyone fantasize about Double Decker tacos being added back to Taco Bell’s menu? I’d included those details in the book because I thought they were funny. Suddenly, they felt like a worrisome addition.

Well, I hadn’t really thought of it like that, I answered slowly, but I guess I can see how it seems that way.

I was still trying to unpack his interpretation of those scenes in the book as he proceeded with more questions, many of them having to do with my coming out as HIV+. We treated it like a casual conversation—casual if that means discussing my most intimate life moments with a total stranger in a restaurant, seated in close proximity to a crowd of more strangers, all of whom were tilting their ears towards our booth.

Have you ever had that classic anxiety nightmare about arriving at school, realizing you’re naked, and everyone is looking at you and whispering? That’s what becoming famous feels like. It’s a lot of attention whether you’re ready for it or not—on the street, in a bar, at a party, sometimes even in a public bathroom. I wasn’t quite used to it yet. (I’m still not, tbh.)

Right in the middle of detailing the exact moment I discovered I was HIV+, two very sweet, well-intentioned girls appeared at our table and asked if they could take a selfie. It’s a situation I’m used to because it happens all the time. Usually I happily oblige, but in this instance, I literally had tears in my eyes. Even if they hadn’t heard the specifics of what I’d been saying, this was clearly not the right time.

But at that moment my obvious distress didn’t matter. They wanted their photo, and I just couldn’t do it. There was no way I could flip a switch and turn on the happy JVN they knew from TV. I apologized and explained that I was having a very intense conversation, said, Namaste, and went back to talking about HIV, surviving sexual abuse, and becoming a sex worker. Just your average brunch moment, right?

By the time the interview was over I felt utterly emotionally drained, and also very worried. I’d just spilled so much information I’d kept secret for so long. I was prepared to do that with the book, but what comforted me about going public about my past was the fact that I’d been given a chance to tell my stories in my own words. Suddenly I was no longer sure that would be the case, so I called my publicist to confirm that the interview would come out after my book had been released.

Well, she told me, they don’t reveal the exact date that they’re going to publish their articles. But it will be before the book hits the shelves, anywhere from two to four days. That’s normal—it’s all part of the process.

I suddenly worried for the second time that day that anxiety shit was about to start running down my legs. This was all new territory for me. I was shocked and wished I’d known the timing of it all before I’d sat down with the reporter.

I get it now. Books need publicity ahead of their publishing date. My publicist was right, it’s a normal part of the process and one I was very lucky to be a part of, but in that moment all I could think was: Oh my fuck, oh my Nancy Kerrigan, holy Simone Biles—what am I going to do?

I began to obsess over how the article would be written and how it would be received. I still had my comedy tour to get back to, and the red carpet to prepare for, but now I woke up with dread every morning. Stepping onto the stage for each nightly stand-up show introduced a whole new element of risk; before that first book interview, my pre-performance nerves had always been about whether the audience would laugh at my jokes or if I’d land the difficult-for-me gymnastics routine I did at the beginning of each show (as any nonbinary, gymnastics-obsessed, newbie, traveling stand-up comedian does in their act). But during the following few weeks of shows, I worried constantly in the back of my mind that while I was on stage, my most private moments were being released into the world and racing across the internet like Bonnie Blair on her way to speed skating glory, flinging my secrets everywhere like ice shavings in her wake, without any of the care I’d given my words in the book.

I tried hard to put the impending article out of my mind. I had more shows to slay and people to dazzle with my comedy prowess, but the worries lingered.

Three days before my publication date, I returned home to New York after a show in Las Vegas, prior to which I had been in Toronto doing stand-up and, before that, with the cast and crew of Queer Eye at the Creative Arts Emmys in LA. At each event I wondered if I’d be on the red carpet or mid-interview when all of a sudden everyone would know my HIV status and personal struggles, but told through someone else’s narrative. I passed out as soon as I got home that Saturday night and woke up around eleven on Sunday with dozens of texts and even more missed calls.

Clearly, the article had gone live.

Reading the story on the couch in my living room, curled up next to my best friend, surrounded by the luggage we’d tossed on the floor just hours before, was a sobering experience. The journalist had written an authentic, candid, and fair article, and to my relief, the overall reactions throughout the day were very positive. But my interaction with the two girls asking for a picture became a big focus of the story. As had every deep, dark, clickbait fact about my past.

If I hadn’t known otherwise, my book kind of sounded like a downer.

Where’s all the fun stuff? I wondered. The lightness? The laughter? All of my brilliant, encyclopedic Michelle Kwan references? I wasn’t ashamed of the facts I’d laid bare, but that wasn’t the totality of my story. So much of it is about learning that some of my biggest successes live next to some of my biggest traumas, and that’s okay. I wanted to show people that joy can live beside sorrow, and that sadness doesn’t invalidate your right to experience happiness. The book is about how I learned to love myself despite all the reasons I could have chosen not to, and I wanted other people to discover the same ability in themselves. Instead, the world’s first impression of my book, warts and all, highlighted all of the warts and none of the all.

A lasting effect of that article was that it also set the tone for more to follow. Many of the healing stories in my book were neglected, and subsequent reporters kept the emphasis firmly on the darkness. Finding the courage to tell my truth and then having it retold in what felt like a more negative light felt frustrating.

I understand now that their priority wasn’t my personal feelings or the overall message; it was boosting their readership. And while it took me a hot second to come around to this, that’s ultimately okay because their mission ended up also serving mine. It introduced me to a wider audience than I’d dared to hope for. The book became a bestseller, and my dream that it would help people came true.

I’m grateful, because in the end, the experience taught me whole new levels of compassion, patience, and, most important, acceptance. In fact, I learned to thrive despite the discomfort of every new interview with a person who